Good question.
Sara replied, “Hotel Parque Central, por favor.”
“Good decision,” I said.
“And the right one.”
That remained to be seen.
CHAPTER 33
Sunday was not a day of rest nor a day of worship unless you worship an air-conditioned Chinese bus.
Our itinerary had us on a road trip to a city called Matanzas, a hundred kilometers east of Havana, and Sara and I sat together as the bus pulled away from the Parque Central, our home away from home.
The morning had started off with two messages: a phone message from Jack, a.k.a. Cristo, saying, “My flight is on time,” and an announcement from Tad saying, “Antonio won’t be joining us today.”
Regarding Jack’s message, Sara saw this as a sign that she’d made the right decision last night and that the mission was back on track. I wasn’t sure Jack would agree. In any case, I hope he got laid last night.
Regarding the news that Antonio was AWOL today, Sara asked, rhetorically, “Where do you think he is?”
Well, hopefully he got run over by a Coco cab. Or shot by a jealous boyfriend, thereby saving me the trouble. On the other hand, be careful what you wish for. I wasn’t exactly looking forward to meeting Antonio tonight, but neither did I want him dead before I heard what he had to say.
Sara, however, said, “I don’t think we should go to that bar tonight.”
Well, if we were on The Maine now, heading to Key West, she wouldn’t have to worry about that.
“Mac?”
“That’s how we left it with him.”
“I’m wondering why he didn’t tell us he had today off.”
“Ask him when you see him.”
“I think tonight is a trap and he didn’t want to . . . interact with us today.”
“Interesting logic. But you could make the opposite case. If tonight is a trap, Antonio would be on this bus reminding us about cocktails at seven.”
She had no reply.
In fact, though, she could be right. Antonio seemed like a guy who didn’t have the cojones to look you in the eye before he gave you the kiss of death. Judas had more balls.
Also missing today was José, our driver, and a guy named Lope was subbing for him. If I were paranoid, I’d say Lope was actually subbing for Antonio. Another week in this place and I’ll start to think my dick is reporting to the police.
The bus rolled through the quiet Sunday streets of Havana and Sara put her head on my shoulder and closed her eyes.
We’d slept together in my room, and this morning I gave her a quick tutorial on how to fire the Glock. Pull the trigger. The Army women I’d dated considered a gun a fashion accessory, but with most civilian women it was best to keep the gun out of sight when you dressed or undressed. Sara, however, was happy that I was armed, though she understood that the gun totally blew our cover as innocent tourists.
There was no safe place to stash the Glock except on my person—or Sara’s—so I had it with me now in Jack’s fanny pack along with the three loaded magazines. Hopefully, there’d be no occasion today for the policía to inquire about the contents of my butt bag.
Sara had advised me last night, “You can’t take the gun to our meeting with Antonio. If it’s a trap, the gun is all the evidence the police need to turn us over to a military tribunal.”
Right. You can bullshit your way out of a lot of things, but getting caught with a gun wasn’t one of them in Cuba.
Also last night, while we were discussing evidence of our crimes against the state, Sara explained to me the alterations she’d made to the treasure map. They were fairly simple, basically reversing a few double-digit numbers, and as a former infantry officer well-trained in map reading, I was sure that I—if I was on my own—could follow this map to where X marked the cave.
We were on the coastal road now, heading east toward Matanzas. The countryside was very pristine—no gas stations or outlet malls, no motels, and no billboards advertising a pick-your-own-mango farm. Also, the countryside seemed sparsely populated and many of the farm houses appeared abandoned, as were the fields around them. Off in the distance I saw a field being plowed by a farmer with two oxen.
Antonio wasn’t onboard to tell us about the new five-year agriculture plan, so Tad stood and gave the group some uncensored info, telling us that agriculture in Cuba had regressed to the nineteenth century, validating my opinion that the organic farm we’d visited was a pile of bullshit.
Professor Nalebuff was onboard, and he offered more subversive information. “Cuba’s last financial lifeline was Venezuela, whose socialist government kept Cuba afloat with oil money. But the price of oil has fallen, and Venezuela, like Cuba, is an economic basket case.” He added, “Ironically, Cuba’s last real hope is U.S. tourism and trade.”
Don’t forget fishing tournaments.
Tad and Alison, who’d been holding back on their criticism of the regime, thought they could speak freely without Antonio around, but Lope, who said he spoke no English, seemed to be listening.
The highway ran close to the coast and I gazed out at the Straits of Florida. Somewhere out there, running on a parallel course with us, was the tournament fleet, and The Maine, which, if we’d gotten aboard last night, would now be heading for Key West. As Yogi Berra wisely said, “When you come to a fork in the road, take it.”
* * *
As we reached the outskirts of Matanzas, Alison told us, “Before the revolution, Matanzas was home to a large number of artists, writers, musicians, and intellectuals, and was called the Athens of Cuba.”
And now it looked like Pompeii.
We got off the bus into the heat and humidity of a large plaza, and we followed Tad and Alison to a nineteenth-century pharmacy that had been turned into a pharmaceutical museum, housed in a grand mansion once owned by the family who’d also owned the pharmacy. Then came La Revolución.
The old pharmacy was sort of interesting, especially the big apothecary jars of belladonna and cannabis. The opium looked good, too. They don’t have this in Walgreens.
We then walked through the narrow streets of the town, jostling for sidewalk space with the natives, who probably thought our tour bus had taken a wrong turn. I said to Sara, “Now you know why Antonio took the day off.”
“Stop complaining.”
Tad advised us that these provincial towns were safer than Havana with regard to pickpockets and purse snatchers, but we should safeguard our valuables as we walked. I didn’t think he was referring to my Glock, but I’d already moved my fanny pack to my front and covered it with my Polo shirt, giving me a nice beer belly.